Why Investing in Leadership Pays Off with Chris Rolls

Chris Rolls, Managing Director of PieLAB Private Equity believes that the best investment that we and our organisations can make is in leadership. In fact, the capital fund he runs makes its investment decisions, and leverages the value from the many millions invested, by focusing on and growing leadership.

It’s paying off too, with their first investment fund performed so well, that they are now raising capital for a second fund using the same philosophy, with 39 out of their original 43 investors buying in again, with some increasing their stakes by up to 10 times their original investment

Chris is also a successful entrepreneur and business leader in his own right, building, growing and selling at least four businesses before establishing PieLABs first investment fund in 2017. 

In this episode Chris shares why leadership makes all the difference to their success, how he learned to value leadership, and some of the key leadership principles that have driven his own success, and that of the businesses they invest in.

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Transcript

It's not about the ordinary. We've got enough of that. It's about 

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the extraordinary. And we need more 

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either. I'm Gerard PENNER and welcome to the Extraordinary Leaders podcast, where we spend time with recognized leaders and global experts exploring the art and science of remarkable leadership. 

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Welcome to the Extraordinary Ladies podcast, where we explore topics and speak with global experts and practitioners on how we can all become better leaders. I'm your host, Gerard PENNER. This episode is a bit of a milestone. It's our 21st and it marks our one year anniversary since our first episode. To all of you who have been listening from the beginning, a heartfelt thank you for those who joined us more recently. Welcome to a community of like minded people who care about leadership. 

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Over this last year, we've had some wonderful conversations about leadership with many fascinating guests. Some have been experts in topics related to leadership. Others have been remarkable leaders in their own right. Throughout every one of those conversations, I've remained convinced that the best investment that we and our organizations can make is in leadership. In this episode, we get to speak with someone who believes this so strongly that the capital fund that he runs makes its investment decisions and leverages the value from many millions invested by focusing on growing leadership and their strategies. 

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Paying dividends. In fact, their first investment fund performed so well that they're now raising capital for a second fund using the same philosophy with 39 out of their original 43 investors buying in again with some increasing their stakes by up to ten times their original investment. Chris Rolls is the managing partner of Pie Lab Capital, the private equity firm that takes majority or 100% ownership positions in small to medium businesses, and then deliberately invests in leadership as their central strategy for growing the value of these businesses. 

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Chris himself has been a successful entrepreneur and business leader in his own right building, growing and selling at least four businesses before establishing Pipe Labs First Investment Fund in 2017. In this episode I'm talking to Chris in Brisbane where he lives and works. It's a fascinating conversation as Chris shares how leadership makes all the difference to their success, how he learned to value leadership and some of the key leadership principles that has driven his own success and that of the businesses they invest in. So hang around. 

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It's going to be a good one. 

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Well. Chris Rolls, welcome to the Extraordinary Leaders podcast. 

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Thanks, Gerard. Appreciate it. 

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Well, the real pleasure to be able to speak with you about leadership. But before we go any further, I'd just love for you to share something about Chris Rolls to our audience. How do you like to describe yourself and how do you like to describe what you do? 

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Well, in terms of describing myself, I'm I guess the the serial entrepreneur. I have spent my life being involved in business and building businesses and and and working with other people and having been part of the team and developing them is probably one of my, my favorite things to do. So that's sort of, I guess, the best explanation of, of me 

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in terms of what we do. I run a business called pilot, and pilot is effectively an investment fund. But unlike a lot of investment funds, what we do is we invest in and acquire small and medium businesses, usually with recurring revenue and a strong history of profitability. And we're building quite a large portfolio of those businesses that we typically buy off older Australians as they go to retire. They've often got fantastic businesses. 

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They've been running for many, many years and we turn out to be quite a good partner for them because we give them a lot of flexibility in the way that they exit them and in particular looking after the people that have often built those businesses with them over, you know, many, many years, which is something we'd like to continue to do, which is working with those people. So that's affected what I, I do at the moment. 

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Mm hmm. We were introduced, Chris, by someone who noticed that both you and I shared an interest and a passion for growing exceptional leadership. We have also both built businesses around the notion of great leadership. Can you share the role that extraordinary leadership plays in the success of your business? 

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Yeah, sure. So interestingly, when you have a set of values and a purpose, and our purpose is to develop people and help them build great businesses. And it's something that I've been very passionate about for for many years, and particularly doing what I do now. I think the difference between our portfolio companies that that really, really excel and those that that don't excel to the same level is is unquestionably the the the leaders that are in that business. 

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And one of the things that I find is that our business generally grows to the level of competence of the people that are running it. So, you know, a lot of investors, you know, go and acquire a business and they get involved in doing things like, you know, cutting costs or implementing new initiatives and those sorts of things. We take a slightly different approach and that approach is we don't need to do any of that. What we need to do is improve the skills of the person who's running the business, and then they take care of that themselves. And so as a result of that, you know, I guess probably the most satisfying thing that I get from what I do is really seeing the development of those people over time. 

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And and it's not uncommon to, you know, to invest in a business that may have taken ten years to get to. In fact, we've got one at the moment that when we invested, took about the founders 11 years to get from 0 to $6 billion in revenue after we've been involved in that business for about four and a half years now, that that business is doing $80 million in revenue. And that's purely, you know, as a result of really helping those leaders internally develop their skills to to generate, you know, better results and for them to, in turn, pass on that same philosophy of developing the leaders of the various parts of their business as well. 

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Hmm. It seems to be something an approach that produces something which is both scalable and sustainable. 

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It is. I mean, our model is is a little different. You know, we sort of play in that private equity space. But in reality, we're not a traditional private equity firm, a traditional private equity firm, raise a fund. And they make an investment in about seven or eight businesses in that fund. They grow those businesses for sort of 3 to 5 years and then they exit them individually. What we do is we have investors that invest alongside us, but it's a permanent capital model. 

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So we buy those businesses or invest in those businesses. We grow them and we hold them with no intention of selling them. So what's really important to us is, is long term results. We're not sort of after a short term sort of sugar hit of profits so that we can exit the business and sell it to, you know, whoever comes along and buys it. We're really after a a long term approach to building value in those businesses. 

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There was something he said earlier which really struck me, this paraphrase. He said that businesses really grow beyond the competence of the people who who run them. Where was it that you learned that leaders and leadership have such a disproportionate impact on business success and and growth? 

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Oh, look, I think unquestionably the way I learned that was was through personal experience. I I've spent most of my career in leadership roles, so I've spent the last 25 years running. I've built and sold four different businesses. And prior to that, I was in the Army. And one of the things I've noticed over sort of that 25 odd years is that I've become better at leading people. And to be frank, when I started, I was pretty ordinary. 

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And I became aware of that when I was at the Royal Military College, Duntroon as a, as an officer cadet in the Army. And it turns out that I was relatively good at doing the Army stuff, all of the kind of core infantry skills that you would expect of an Army soldier. And after my first three months of the Royal Military College, I had the the privilege of being the first leader for that intake of those 180 cadets that were there. So I was in charge of effectively all of the student cadets. 

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And what I did was a really bad job of leading those people. I was really the first leadership position I'd ever had ever had in my life. I was 19 years. I was actually one of the youngest cadets there. And I made lots and lots of mistakes. And, you know, what I subsequently learnt was that that's kind of the teaching process at the Royal Military College. Over the time there, lots of people get thrust into positions of leadership that are beyond their capability. As a result of that, they they learn from that experience. 

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And that was my really first, you know, learning experience. I didn't hold that role for long. They, you know, I was effectively sacked from that role after, you know, probably six or eight weeks. Which, as it turns out, happens to everyone because they shuffle all those leadership roles around throughout the you know, throughout the time that you're there. But I learnt a huge amount in making those mistakes and, and, you know, trying to work out how to, you know, get people to, you know, to do things and to, you know, to work productively together. 

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And that was my first sort of leadership experience. And then, you know, while I was at university, after I got out of the Army, I started my first business. And I've been in leadership roles ever since, you know, effectively as the CEO of of of a range of different businesses. 

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Yeah. There's, um. It's interesting that your experience 20 key learning experiences came at the Royal Military College in Duntroon with on the podcast. We've had a guest previously, Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Martin, who is the director of Army Leadership at the Royal Military College. And and he shared with me in that conversation this idea that good leaders lead, great leaders, grow more leaders. What's your view on that? 

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Oh, I think that's really on point. I to look at, you know, over time in the businesses that I've had and, you know, of the four business I had, three of them are sort of amongst the largest of their type in their industry in Australia. And I think one of the things that we've done to get there is to is to do exactly that. You can't scale a business by doing everything yourself, which means ultimately you have to grow out of other leaders around you. 

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And in fact, once a business gets to a certain size, 

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you know, a CEO's role really is to just make sure that those seats that are a part of their immediate team are filled with exceptional people. And and your role, or the way I see my role is to fill those seats with exceptional people and to help them be as productive as they can be. And and and outside of that, that's that's where I spend most of my time. And and that's sort of a key part, I think, of, of, of of being a leader in business which which is is sometimes different to being a leader in the military. 

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And I think it's something that some people in leadership positions in business don't fully grasp that, you know, once a business gets to a certain size, you find that CEOs, you know, often take one or two paths. You get some that like continue to do the doing, which is continuing to, you know, get involved in various projects, etc.. But the problem very often happens or the problem that does happen is that they tend to get in the way of the people they've put in in charge of actually leading those those projects. 

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Whereas the key thing is, in my view, is to let those people lead those those projects, don't micromanage them, get out of their way and focus, most importantly, on improving those people skills so that they can execute on those, you know, those projects more effectively. 

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Mm hmm. Have you ever made investments in businesses that had CEOs who were stuck somewhat in the doing? And if so, how did you or have you been able to encourage them to let go to actually trust other people, to surround themselves by, you know, people potentially who are more capable than they are and trust in that process. 

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Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's probably the most common thing that we see, particularly with smaller businesses. So when we invest in businesses, they're not enormous businesses. They have, you know, somewhere between, you know, roughly 20 to 80 people in each business. And but over time, some of those businesses can grow to have hundreds and in some cases, even thousands. We've got sort of two portfolio companies that are sort of over a thousand one's nearly 4000 employees. 

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And one of the things that we see when they're small, in fact, probably the most common issue in small businesses when they've kind of reached this cap in terms of how much they can grow, is they've surrounded themselves with people that have reached their capability limits. And while often they'll recognize that it's a very hard thing to do, a very difficult conversation to have when you've spent five years working with someone who has put in all of the time and effort and done everything they can to to do a great job. 

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And they're very loyal, but they've simply reached their capacity in terms of talent. And one of the things that we do is encourage our leaders of businesses to really look at the people around them and say to themselves, If I had the chance to fill this seat with another person, would I recruit the person that is there right now to do that? And if the answer to that isn't isn't yes, I absolutely would recruit that same person, then you have to ask the question, well, why is that same person there? And so that's sometimes a very confronting conversation to have. 

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And, you know, it's it's one of those things that in most businesses, it's not a case of, you know, you go in and, you know, you say to a CEO or have a look at the people and you remove half of them. In fact, it's far from that. What we we do is is show them the capability of what happens when you get really good leaders around them and and to your point, really encourage them to to bring on people that are, you know, more experienced, you know, more talented, smarter than they are, because that, in turn, develops their skills as well. 

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Often you see a leader at the sort of the I guess the top of the hierarchy of a business stops learning because the people they've surrounded themselves don't have anything to teach them that they don't already know. And that's a massive issue. And it's something I practice myself, you know, you know, work hard to to find people that are more capable than me, of which there are tons around, you know, to to put in positions, you know, across across my business so that I can learn from from them. 

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So that's that's definitely a philosophy we have. 

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Yeah. And tell me a bit about the seeds of that philosophy, the moment of germination, because you told me better a moment in your property manager management business where you learned something about vulnerability and not needing to have all the answers. Can you share that experience with our listeners? 

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Yeah, absolutely. And it was it was a it was probably a pivotal point in my journey as a as a leader in business. I had a business and this is going back quite a while now when this actually happened was a company called Rental Express. We managed a lot of residential property across Queensland based in Brisbane, 

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and I don't know how many employees who would have had at the time, but probably circa 100 in that business. And one of the things that's happened in that business is we had a leadership team that had grown too big because I was in the same boat as most business leaders and and, you know, a little bit reticent to have some of the difficult conversations that I that I really needed to have. And I brought in a facilitator for our quarterly sort of offsite planning sessions in that business. 

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And I remember a really specific point in time where. Something came up, but I can't actually remember what the actual question was. But it was really making a decision about do we do I or do we do B? And I really didn't know what to do, 

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you know, and we were kind of sort of fluffing around. And then the facilitator, the consultant said to me, 

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you know what? What what do you think we should do? And I sort of said, Oh, look, I think we should probably do this, but then we should probably do that. And then he sort of said, So what you're saying is you actually don't know what to do. And I and I was really hesitant to say, no, I don't know what to do. 

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But he was so direct. 

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And I said, well, actually, actually, no, I don't I don't know what to do. And I kind of threw my hands up, you know, and and I was a bit embarrassed. And he said, Fantastic. That's exactly what we want to hear. All right. Chris doesn't know what to do. And we went around the room sort of fleshing out all these ideas. And the big takeaway for me and it sounds like such a stupid thing now, but the big takeaway for me is that as a leader, you don't have to have all the ideas. And in fact, if you're a leader who thinks you have all the ideas, you're probably not a very good leader. And that was a really you know, what sounds like something so simple was a really groundbreaking moment for me in terms of understanding that my job is not to have all the ideas. 

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My job is to recruit brilliant people who collectively have a diverse background of views and opinions so that as a group we can come to what is the best decision. And that was that moment for me, and that was probably close to ten years ago now. 

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Right. And was that something which reinforced or even created a tendency that you now have that you self-declared? To me, I think in the very first conversation we ever had, which was that you said you were just curious. You're incredibly curious. Did that exist before then? And if so, how did it shape that curiosity in some way, or did that catalyze that curiosity? 

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Oh, look, I've always been curious. So I've spent most of my life learning, reading, tending courses. 

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You know, I just I've always I've always been curious. But I think what what led to that moment happening was because of my curiosity. So I, you know, read a lot of books on sort of business and investing. I read an enormous amount, typically of non-fiction books. 

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And I had come across a book called The Advantage by Patrick Lentini, who's a consultant on organizational health. And I'd always been big on, you know, having enjoyable, productive cultures in the workplace. But it's always it's a never ending journey of of improvement. Like you never get it perfectly right. 

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And that's where I came across that consultant who I brought brought in just to to. You know, I felt we're in a pretty good spot, but you can always improve. And. And so I think it's almost the reverse that that moment didn't lead to my curiosity. My curiosity led to that moment. If I hadn't have been an avid reader of, you know, books, I wouldn't have come across some of the work that Patrick Lindsay has done. Therefore, I wouldn't have come across that consultant who, you know, who who had in that one meeting had a profound impact on on, I think, the rest of my business career today. 

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Mm hmm. There's actually a HPR article which I sometimes share with my executive coaching clients, and the title of it is Why Curious Leaders Are Destined for the C-suite, in other words. Curious. The research suggests that curious leaders are typically much more likely to end up in positions of senior leadership heading enterprises and organizations because they're not. So dependent upon continuing to rely on this sort of body of expertise that they've built over time, but they're actually continually moving into new territory, investigating new ideas, just asking lots of questions, remaining open minded. 

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Integrating and synthesizing new insights and new perspectives into their meaning making and how they respond to the world. You said something to me really interesting in an earlier conversation as well. And it's it was to do with the your interactions with high net worth individuals who, you know, often have built, you know, considerable wealth through growing their own businesses and they often invest in your funds. And you said that you noticed that these leaders who are very successful in their own right, that they are lifelong learners. 

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What is it that you've observed. 

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Or exactly that? You know, one of the things that that we do in our business, we raise capital from from investors. So effectively, the service that we provide to our customers is we provide them with a return on their capital. 

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So they invest, you know, in our funds. We then take that capital and invest that capital in private businesses and help those businesses grow, which is an asset class that's quite sometimes difficult for, you know, very wealthy families to invest in because you need to make very small investments. And and we have a way of doing that in a in a scalable way. So, you know, as a result of of what we do and part of my role is, you know, liaising with our investors, I've gotten to meet some some fascinating people that have built extraordinary businesses, some of the largest businesses in the country. 

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And one of the things that I have observed over time is exactly that, that very often the people that have built that extraordinary wealth 

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are very, very curious in their own right. They are people who are constantly, you know, reading new things, looking at new ideas. They're the ones that ask the most questions. They you know, and and one of the things I find really interesting is they often send me articles on things like, Oh, I thought you might like this, have you read this? And all of a sudden I get email and I think, Wow, I haven't read that. I'll, I'll write that. And it'll be a really interesting insight. And sometimes it's not even anything to do with, you know, what we do. 

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It might not be anything to do with, you know, the business or the economy or whatever. It might just be a really interesting point around something unrelated. And so, you know, that's something that that I've found has been a really consistent trait across a lot of those people that have built, you know, extraordinary wealth, you know, through business. And I think it's fair to say that it's very difficult to build wealth in business if you are not a reasonably good leader. 

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And and I think that curiosity is what makes people, you know, improve over time. 

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Mm hmm. You mentioned before a book by Patrick Lynch, Tony, which had it influenced your thinking? It was the book, The Advantage book around organizational health. You also mentioned that you have a client who sends you articles. What are the books or articles that contain key ideas have had a significant impact upon you thinking what would be a couple? 

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Oh, 

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I actually have a I actually have a list of sort of my top ten books and one they relate to. So the advantage would definitely be in there. And some of them are sort of really, you know, well-known academic lecturers. So Jim Collins is a classic. But I mean, most people that have read a business book or to have heard of Jim Collins, most people who read his book, Good to Great, I think Built to Last, which was sort of a it was written before good the great but I think is the better off of some of his writing, which is really around values and purpose within business. 

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I think that's that's excellent, 

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you know, for small businesses. There's a book called The E-Myth by Michael Gerber, which is exceptional, really simple, easy to read book. And it's really about understanding that it's all very well to be a technician in business and understand how to bake bread if you're a bakery. But that won't create a successful bakery. You need to learn the business skills and be able to scale 

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from an investment perspective. 

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Look, this there's so many is a book called The Outsiders, which is on I Can't for the Life of me remember the author, but it's a book on investment around how, you know, there's a group of CEOs that have built extraordinary compounding businesses. So businesses that year after year compound their profits and have grown to these enormous organizations that talks a lot about capital allocation. So you think about it as a as a leader of business. What is your your role? Your role is to allocate resources. 

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And, you know, and part of that is allocate resources to finding the right people to sit in the right seats. And that book is all about sort of resource allocation. Do you buy. You know I particular business to bolt on to yours or do you build that capability internally, you know, and how do you make those decisions? So that's a that's an excellent book. 

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And then even just down to to sort of, you know, personal development things that aren't necessarily business growth. And in fact, a book that was given to me by one of those investors, sort of high net worth investor who you built sort of a, you know, one of the biggest businesses in Australia that literally every single person in the country has has used their product. 

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He he sent me a book one day and it's called Younger Next Year, and he's about 76 years old. And I was catching up with him. I happened to be at Stradbroke Island 

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with my family. We have we quite like camping. I've got two young boys and we're in a caravan and he gave me a call about something and I just happened to mention I was at Stradbroke, I said oh I've got a, I've got a house here, I'm, I'm, I'm literally just up the road. Why don't you come over for a glass of wine. So I did, I went over and. I kind of I hadn't seen it for a while and I kind of pulled in the driveway and there was this guy there with his back to me that was tinkering with a kite surfing board and ah, a foil that's on it who had sort of long hair. And I kind of as we as I wandered in, I was with my wife and two kids. 

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And as I sort of wandered in, I said, I'm just here to see how I mention his name, such and such. And he turned around, it was actually him. And I said, Oh, oh, okay. And it turns out he he was taken up kite surfing in his seventies. And that got into the conversation around just how does someone he was 76 is couple of years ago now same age as my father and I thought you know my father you know he doesn't have anywhere near the level of fitness or energy that you do. 

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How is that? And he tells told me this story about how he was sailing around the world like you do. And he was in the Panama Canal and he was stuck because they'd rip the mainsail on the on their catamaran. And he had this at the marina there about, you know, 100 odd books on this bookshelf. And slowly, because he had to wait for this new sail for weeks and weeks to turn up, he just read every single book that was there. And one of those books was this book called Younger Next Year, which basically talks about as you age, particularly once you get over 50. 

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And I'm not I'm not there yet, but it's not miles away. What happens is your body starts to decline and there are a few key things you can do to effectively stop that decline. And he basically applied everything in that book to his own life. And, you know, at the time when he read that book, he was in his sixties and he said, I literally took 15 years off my life in in the space of 12 months. So that's an example of a book that's not business or investing related that, but can also have a huge impact on your on your life. 

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And so the reading that I do is, is, is quite diverse. But, you know, there's sort of three or four examples. 

00:30:13:02 - 00:30:54:15>

One of the key ideas that I've discovered about leadership is that often the learning that we can do is in the moment, if we take the time to get off the dance floor or onto the balcony and reflect on the experience we're having and what we're seeing around us, that we can discern patterns, we can discern new things that we hadn't seen before. Obviously, the last couple of years with COVID and the pandemic and the impact that that's had on people has created very challenging circumstances for many organizations and many people. And I'm curious, Chris, given that you're in this unique position of having relationship with all of these businesses in an intimacy, to be able to look in on the businesses and looking on the leadership. 

00:30:55:17 - 00:31:08:27>

You know, what have you noticed across that sort of that group of companies and businesses as to the kind of leadership that responded well and the kind of leadership that struggled more? Did you. Have you been able to pick anything up around that? 

00:31:09:23 - 00:31:14:08>

Oh, absolutely. I think the big thing that I've noticed is. 

00:31:17:04 - 00:31:38:24>

Leadership to two things. One, leadership is not about extroversion in introversion. Some people think that's, you know, people that always have something to say can always sort of fill that voice, that are very raw, motivational, are great leaders, and some of them are, but so are a whole bunch of introverts who who are often not 

00:31:40:19 - 00:32:16:15>

that kind of rah rah motivation type leader, you know, so so that's that's one of the things I've noticed. Introversion extroversion has nothing to do with great leadership. I think the second one the second thing that that is important around leadership is what we touched on before, which is vulnerability willing, the willingness to say to the people around you that I don't know what such and such means. One of the most frustrating things I see is, you know, someone might be doing a presentation to a group of people and they might use an acronym, for example, in investment terminology. 

00:32:16:15 - 00:32:48:13>

They might use something like, say, the, the, the era of, of this fund is 30%. Now, some people won't know that IRA stands for Internal Rate of Return, which is a measure of return over time. Now, to sit there and not know what IRR is is ridiculous. And it doesn't matter if you don't know, but if you don't ask, you're not going to know. And what you see is you see people kind of nod and you sort of think, yeah, I know some of these people don't know what that is, but nobody's asked. And the question is why not? And the answer is they're worried about looking silly. 

00:32:50:02 - 00:33:07:12>

But what I found over time is that if you don't worry about looking silly and you ask all of the questions, you you develop so much more rapidly than than everyone else. And that sort of, you know, willing to sort of say, I don't know what this means or I don't know what that is or, 

00:33:09:01 - 00:33:18:05>

you know, is such a vital part of becoming a successful leader. And then I think the third thing is. 

00:33:19:21 - 00:33:38:00>

Is being willing to have constructive conflict around you. So we talk about with a lot of our businesses this concept of artificial harmony. Oh, I once again, I think a concept coined by Patrick Clancy. I could be wrong about that. And artificial harmony is this scenario where 

00:33:39:18 - 00:34:22:11>

you have often a a lack of trust amongst a team or often a very autocratic leader who might say, I think we should do X, Y and Z. And people in that person's team disagree, but they're not willing to say, because they've learned by disagreeing with the leader of that team that they don't get opportunities for promotion, they get belittled, they get you know, they're not going to be listened to even if they do say something. And creating an environment where your your team and anyone on your team, I should point out, not just your immediate sort of reports, anyone in an entire organization can say, hey, I've noticed we're doing X and I think that's the wrong thing to do. 

00:34:22:12 - 00:34:53:01>

And the reason I think that's wrong is because of, you know, whatever is is really, really important. And I'll give an example that actually came to light. So my last business when I sold it, we very much had an internal culture across across our organization of say what you think everyone you know has a view on things. And sometimes those views, if they're unheard, you know, can, you know, can really be detrimental to the organization. So we want to hear everyone's opinion. 

00:34:53:10 - 00:35:13:23>

Doesn't mean we'll necessarily agree with your opinion, but we want to hear everyone's opinion and the rationales for it. So it was very common in a leadership meeting where, you know, we might be saying, hey, I might be saying I think we should execute on this strategy and here's why. And it's very common for, you know, people in that team to turn around. I got not Chris. I think that's a stupid idea. And he's the reason why I think you're wrong on that. 

00:35:15:12 - 00:35:52:02>

And that's exactly what I want. I want people to tell me I'm wrong on this or I haven't thought about that because I don't know all the answers. And so we had that that sort of environment. And then I sold that business, and that business was acquired by sort of a large corporate, and we were a very large part of that. So we were sort of one of the biggest, you know, organizations of our type in Australia. And so when I sold that business, my leadership team became the leader, you know, for Queensland within that business and the CEO know who was part of my team and took over. 

00:35:52:02 - 00:36:27:19>

So the CEO after me. He was very used to that open type of constructive conflict and he went to his first group meeting with all the leaders with this new corporate and the CEO who he reported to was helping them come up with a you know, they were doing sort of a strategy thing to come up with sort of a a new a new purpose for the business. And and, you know, they're revisiting their values. And he said, I think our purpose should be X. And the guy who was used to the environment that we had within our business said and he probably used the right language, but he said, just blurted it out. 

00:36:27:20 - 00:36:29:00>

I think that's a shithouse idea. 

00:36:31:01 - 00:37:02:15>

And all of a sudden there was this deathly silence around the room and everyone looked at him because it was not part of their culture to question what their CEO had said. And that CEO said to, you know, my mind that that guy said, well, well, tell me, you know, why is that? Why is that not a good idea? And and sort of berated him in front of everybody else. And by doing that, that CEO made it absolutely clear that no one was to have an opinion in that organisation, which is why nobody nobody does. 

00:37:03:23 - 00:37:20:17>

And and that's just this classic scenario of, of artificial harmony at work and as a, as a leader of any group, irrespective of where you where you are, if you don't have constructive criticism of your own opinions, then then you've got a problem in terms of in terms of the quality of decisions you're going to make. 

00:37:21:28 - 00:37:52:07>

Yeah. And it sounds like that that can a lot of that sort of cultural dynamic can stem from leaders who believe that they actually have got it all sorted. That they have all the answers that. They've got a little under control. They know they know what's the right way to do things and they're not open to growth or development or a different perspective. In fact, I found it quite corrosive to culture and corrosive to growth is to is to actually be unable to acknowledge where we're on the edge of our own development. 

00:37:52:18 - 00:38:29:04>

We were on the edge of our own, knowing our own competence when we when we know that there's something beyond the way we respond to the world, to think about the world that we don't yet know. And we're struggling. We're struggling to make progress with something that's important to us or we're struggling to to solve problems that we'd like to solve. And one of the questions I love to end these podcast conversations with with great leaders like yourself, of people who are interested in great leadership, is what's your leadership edge right now, CHRIS What what's what are you working on and that you want to make progress with? What's something in which you don't have all the answers yet? 

00:38:30:02 - 00:38:49:07>

A big one for me personally and is, you know, a really common one as well is is is time management. How do you know? You only have one life. And I love doing what I do. Running. Running our funds. You know, we. We've been getting really, really good results, and it's a lot of fun. 

00:38:51:22 - 00:39:26:23>

But it's also you know, what I do is is very time consuming, partly because, you know, I have a real passion for it. And so one of the things I do think a lot about is, is time. Work life balance is really hard to maintain. My experiences when I see, you know, if you take a group of successful people in business, you know, I think it would be fair to say that, I don't know, nine out of ten of them have spent most of their lives without work life balance, often by choice. 

00:39:28:02 - 00:40:03:07>

And I question personally whether that is the right thing to do versus the wrong thing to do. I mean, you know, and what is the goal in life? Is the goal to pursue is is a successful life? A successful career is a successful life. A lot more than that. And I think it's actually a lot more than that. So one of the things I spend a lot of time, you know, thinking about is, is how can I create an organization not just for myself, but for the people within it, where they can genuinely have business success, but also work life balance as well, which is which is very, very difficult to do. 

00:40:03:17 - 00:40:26:26>

And I think the only way to do that is to become more productive with the time that you are spending working. Which brings us right back to what has been the theme of this conversation. The only way to get more out of every hour when you are working is to be more capable, and the only way to become more capable is to learn. So that's that's sort of something that that the cross my mind at the moment. 

00:40:28:16 - 00:40:39:05>

I love the way that that kind of wraps up our conversation really well, because the whole idea is that one of the ideas that really struck me, which I'd heard John F Kennedy had said, is that, you know, if if learning. 

00:40:41:04 - 00:41:17:20>

It is so central to our sustainability and our success and our growth and leadership and learning are actually indispensable to each other. Often the work of leadership forces us to have to learn, and as we lead, we can actually learn along the way rather than think we need to have all the answers before we get started. So Chris, thank you very much for sharing both your experiences, your insights, your perspectives, what you've been learning and what you're still working on. This is all this, all the sort of thing that that can help leaders out there who are curious about how other leaders work, how other leaders do things, and how they can grow their own leadership. 

00:41:18:00 - 00:41:22:03>

So thank you very much for sharing all of that wonderful insight and perspective with us. 

00:41:22:26 - 00:41:26:11>

No problem. Thanks very much for having me on on the podcast. 

00:41:30:16 - 00:42:02:08>

I hope that you've enjoyed listening to this fascinating conversation with Chris Rowles from Pilot Capital and that in some way it's informed and evolved. Your thinking about your own leadership. I'm looking forward to sharing another episode with you next month. And if you want to make it easy to stay up to date with new episodes as they're released, simply subscribe. It doesn't matter whether it's Apple, Spotify, Google or some other platform. They'll make it easy to stay up to date with new episodes and also access our previous episodes on essential leadership topics and fascinating conversations with remarkable people. 

00:42:03:06 - 00:42:18:00>

You can also visit our website for more information or join our community. We can then keep you up to date with our latest programs and resources. There's also a page where you can order my book, Extraordinary The Art and Science of Remarkable Leadership. For now, thanks for listening and leave well.